I got to spend Halloween in New Orleans this year and it was amazing. I am a vegetarian now and was sad that I was going to miss out on all that awesome food the city is known for--but I found vegetarian PARADISE there. Everything I ate was fantastic--I had Fried Green Tomatoes twice, at two different places and was in love with everything! I had the most delectable sweet potato biscuits at the Green Goddess with wild mushroom gravy, YUM! One of my favorite dishes is biscuits and gravy so I was really excited to see a vegetarian version in a restaurant. I make one at home, but sweet potato biscuits?!?!? I never could have dreamt--sooooo tasty. And Croissant D'or Patisserie had the most amazing croissants--apparently I have never had one before because these stand in a world of their own. Okay, this isn't meant to be a food gushie, I swear, haha. But it has to be mentioned.

My best friend and I took a couple of tours while we were there, both of which focused on the history of New Orleans, the architecture, and some of the legends of the famous and infamous people who have lived there. One of them was a cemetery tour and the other was a "ghost" tour; both were fantastic and incredibly interesting. I highly recommend tours of cities now--next one I want to take is, can you guess? A foodie tour. *sparkle*

They had an awesome parade on the night before Halloween--see? There are so many reasons to go to NOLA for Halloween! We spent two and a half days walking all over the French Quarter and I wish we could have stayed longer, there's too much cool stuff to check out. I dressed up as a mermaid and had people stopping me and my friend (who was a very impressive' demon) to get our pictures taken. It was so much fun. And we weren't alone with the whole fabulous costume thing--the entire city it seems loves to get dressed up. Sadly, I wasn't able to check out Frenchman Street on this trip so I missed out on the legendary jazz music the city is known for ... makes a great excuse to go back again though! I just had to share a couple pictures since I had so much fun--and to show off the costume my mother made for me by hand--I know, she's pretty awesome. I'll also post a couple pictures of other fantastic costumes I came across--if any of these are you and you don't want me showing off your costume here, let me know and I'll take it down. Forgive the glowing or red eyes, my camera phone can only do so much! I <3 you NOLA, I can't wait to do it again!

I have recently moved back to California--the state in which I was born. I am so excited to be back in the California sunshine. And to celebrate I will be performing in Napa at Porchfest at the end of July. The event runs from 1 - 6pm and I will be performing a set from 2:30 - 3:30 pm.

Porchfest takes place on the front porches of people's houses throughout Napa all at once. So you can wander through town from porch to porch listening to live local music having a great time. There is a 30 minute break between each set so you have time to check out your favorite bands even if they're playing on different porches. This is the address of the porch I'll be performing on. Not Dead Yet will be performing before me and Dany Lyon & Steve Jeffery will be performing after me. After them it'll be a jam session, so bring your instrument! It'll be a lot of fun--I hope to see you there!

New Year, New You right? Actually I'd rather that we embrace ourselves as we are. So in appreciation of the anxious procrastinator I recognize myself to be, (for now anyway, I'll get around to work on that one of these days) I finally got my new webpage up and that's cause for a celebration! Not only that, but what finally got the page up is that I have a dream come true to share:I just posted my very first music video up on Youtube!

I'm so grateful to David Sinclair who recorded the song and video for me in his beautiful home in Austin, Texas. He did an incredible job mixing and mastering the song and editing the video. I'm so excited to have another original song recorded--I love writing music. I'm also grateful to his beautiful wife and my good friend Fereschta Zamani Sinclair who introduced me to some of Austin's charming and quirky places by running around town with me and taking more video footage. The whole experience was such a spontaneous creative musical joy! It was so uplifting, peaceful, and rejuvenating to be there and recording the video was one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life. (scuba diving is another) It was such a special visit and I am so blessed to have such incredible people in my life. So even though this is months overdue (we recorded this during the SxSW festival in 2013) I am so glad to finally share this with you.

David insisted that we record me singing and playing the guitar in one take while also recording the video. I'm really glad we did it that way. When I have recorded songs in the past, I've almost always recorded the vocals and guitar at the same time and used one take because I appreciate that organic sound you get from a live performance. But I had no idea what it would be like to add video into the mix. There was a bit more to be aware of, but they made me so comfortable with it all of it even though it was a little nerve-wracking at first. It turned out to be just an amazing experience. So, yes, the video and vocals--it's all live! Except the background vocals and percussion we did later, and the shots of me running around Austin Texas of course ;) Enjoy! "They're Only Dreams"

Author

I have been singing and writing songs for as long as I can remember. I picked up the guitar when I was 16 and have been playing ever since. The process of songwriting is like meditation for me. Fully focused on the here and now, or perhaps like therapy, I'm processing my life. Not everything I write is about myself however. Sometimes it's fun to see where this creative energy leads me and follow a story that is entirely fictional.

But even fictional stories are bound to our lives by truth--we all experience the things that any character might go through: sorrow, anger, resentment, frustration, fear, joy, gratitude, hope, love, etc. So in that way even if I haven't gone through the exact story of a character in my song, it's easy to connect to the emotion behind it. Like acting, I love getting into the emotion of the songs I write and portraying the story when I sing.